guitar rig vs amplitude vs gtr solo ?

I'm not at all a guitar player and my knowledge in rock is based on classics , so need ya help to choose the best , to tweaks sounds (guitar based an othe tweaks for vocals and drums!!! even synth cause i know it's very versatile!)

I've never really had much success getting some guitar plug-in stuff to play.

GTR solo was just a noise for me so I can't really say if it is any good and I only had the free amplitube thing, which was fairly pointless.
Guitar Rig has usable weird sounds and cleans. Not crisp enough in the distortion area without a lot tweaking. It pays to be a fairly good guitarist to get the best out of it. I define average so it punishes my sloppy playing. Line6 surprised me. It's definitely improved from bees in the jar. They argued that it was replicating an original sound so that's why it was like that. That's tosh, of course and they've improved it so I think that says something.

I think you can actually test them all to some degree via limited demos.

I just got done playing with guitar rig 3. From someone that owned a bunch of amps. I really didn't like the distortions at all. they are all so boomy and WAY too much bottom end. It requires serious tweaking but also the sounds are so dry. I just don't understand why you have to go through a mic simulation. Simulating the amp and cab is already enough loss of fidelity, and you can't bypass the microphone.
So you might have figured out that I don't like it, but neither I like other amp sims. if you plan to use it on top of a real guitar track it might help you a bit to differentiate the sound, but nothing beats a mic in front of an amp.

if you go direct in from your guitar, it's decent only for clean.

Hey the overloud thing is kind of cool. Just bought it yesterday so kinda hard to compare but the heavy sounds are good and the cleaner sounds are good.
Revalver has the best sound, though I would argue the worst interface
Pod Farm has lots of flexibility, though it seems to excel at the heaviest of sounds
GR3 is ok. I like it much more for its tweed sounds than its heavily overdriven ones
Amplitube 2 does not work for the way I record. I am not the only one with this issue


No one has a convincing Vibe pedal.
Spring Reverb is probably best in the GR series.
Compressors vary from one to the next. I prefer the ones in the Pod Farm
GR3 has the most customizable cabinet stuff, though the Overloud thing TH1 is a close second.
GR3 gives you some wierd synth tools - much more capable than those in Pod Farm.

All of them have decent delays, choruses, phase shifters...
Best AC30 - maybe Pod Farm if you take the top boost, turn the gain way way down...
Maybe A2, if they ever get it to work in loop record mode.
If you dont do multiple takes over a region (which I DO), A2 sounds really good for things like the AC30 and the Marshall clones.

They all have their strengths and weaknesses. Get them all.